School `too Catholic'

AN MP has called for an inquiry after a top grammar school said it was twice refused government funding because its bid was "too Catholic".

Education Department officials turned down two applications in six months from St Ambrose College at Hale Barns, near Altrincham, for special status in maths and computing.

The school has suffered two other knock-backs from the department.

Last summer, after an old teaching block was condemned and demolished, the department refused emergency funding to replace it, and its application for é3.5m to rebuild parts of the school was also refused. The single-sex, local education authority-funded, selective grammar school, which was fee-paying until six years ago, has 300 applications a year from boys from across the north west for just 129 places.

Now furious head Michael Thompson has accused the department of bias, while Altrincham and Sale West Tory MP Graham Brady has demanded an inquiry.

The special college status would have been worth up to é1m a year to the 800-pupil school. When Mr Thompson asked officials during a debriefing after the second "special status" refusal why his school had been rebuffed again, he says he was told: "Your bid is too Catholic."

Challenging the official to explain the comment, he was told his bid had failed to show a required commitment to the wider community.

An Education Department statement insisted there was no bias.

"The selection process is robust and transparent," it said. "It is open to all maintained secondary schools."